White Paper on Exam Form Fee
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Wikipedia
A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body’s philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white paper is the first document researchers should read to better understand a core concept or idea.
The term originated in the 1920s to mean a type of position paper or industry report published by some department of the UK government.
Since the 1990s, this type of document has proliferated in business. Today, a business-to-business (B2B) white paper is closer to a marketing presentation, a form of content meant to persuade customers and partners and promote a certain product or viewpoint. That makes B2B white papers a type of grey literature.
The term white paper originated with the British government and many point to the Churchill White Paper of 1922 as the earliest well-known example under this name. Gertrude Bell, the British explorer and diplomat, was possibly the first woman to write a white paper. Her 149-page report was entitled “Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia” and was presented to Parliament in 1920. In the British government, a white paper is usually the less extensive version of the so-called blue book, both terms being derived from the colour of the document’s cover.
White papers are a “tool of participatory democracy … not [an] unalterable policy commitment”. “White papers have tried to perform the dual role of presenting firm government policies while at the same time inviting opinions upon them.
In Canada, a white paper is “a policy document, approved by Cabinet, tabled in the House of Commons and made available to the general public”. The “provision of policy information through the use of white and green papers can help to create an awareness of policy issues among parliamentarians and the public and to encourage an exchange of information and analysis. They can also serve as educational techniques.”
White papers are a way the government can present policy preferences before it introduces legislation. Publishing a white paper tests public opinion on controversial policy issues and helps the government gauge its probable impact.
By contrast, green papers, which are issued much more frequently, are more open-ended. Also known as consultation documents, green papers may merely propose a strategy to implement in the details of other legislation, or they may set out proposals on which the government wishes to obtain public views and opinion.
Examples of governmental white papers include, in Australia, the White Paper on Full Employment and, in the United Kingdom, the White Paper of 1939 and the 1966 Defence White Paper.
Since the early 1990s, the terms “white paper” or “whitepaper” have been applied to documents used as marketing or sales tools in business. These white papers are long-form content designed to promote the products or services from a specific company. As a marketing tool, these papers use selected facts and logical arguments to build a case favorable to the company sponsoring the document.
B2B (business-to-business) white papers are often used to generate sales leads, establish thought leadership, make a business case, grow email lists, grow audiences, increase sales, or inform and persuade readers. The audiences for a B2B white paper can include prospective customers, channel partners, journalists, analysts, investors, or any other stakeholders.
White papers are considered to be a form of content marketing or inbound marketing; in other words, sponsored content available on the web with or without registration, intended to raise the visibility of the sponsor in search engine results and build web traffic. Many B2B white papers argue that one particular technology, product, ideology, or methodology is superior to all others for solving a specific business problem. They may also present research findings, list a set of questions or tips about a certain business issue, or highlight a particular product or service from a vendor.
An examination (exam or evaluation) or test is an educational assessment intended to measure a test-taker’s knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics (e.g., beliefs). A test may be administered verbally, on paper, on a computer, or in a predetermined area that requires a test taker to demonstrate or perform a set of skills.
Tests vary in style, rigor and requirements. There is no general consensus or invariable standard for test formats and difficulty. Often, the format and difficulty of the test is dependent upon the educational philosophy of the instructor, subject matter, class size, policy of the educational institution, and requirements of accreditation or governing bodies.
A test may be administered formally or informally. An example of an informal test is a reading test administered by a parent to a child. A formal test might be a final examination administered by a teacher in a classroom or an IQ test administered by a psychologist in a clinic. Formal testing often results in a grade or a test score. A test score may be interpreted with regards to a norm or criterion, or occasionally both. The norm may be established independently, or by statistical analysis of a large number of participants.
A test may be developed and administered by an instructor, a clinician, a governing body, or a test provider. In some instances, the developer of the test may not be directly responsible for its administration. For example, Educational Testing Service (ETS), a nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization, develops standardized tests such as the SAT but may not directly be involved in the administration or proctoring of these tests.
Informal, unofficial, and non-standardized tests and testing systems have existed throughout history. For example, tests of skill such as archery contests have existed in China since the Zhou dynasty (or, more my theologically, Yao). Oral exams were administered in various parts of the world including ancient China and Europe. A precursor to the later Chinese imperial examinations was in place since the Han dynasty, during which the Confucian characteristic of the examinations was determined. However these examinations did not offer an official avenue to government appointment, the majority of which were filled through recommendations based on qualities such as social status, morals, and ability.
Standardized written examinations were first implemented in China. They were commonly known as the imperial examinations (keju).
The bureaucratic imperial examinations as a concept has its origins in the year 605 during the short lived Sui dynasty. Its successor, the Tang dynasty, implemented imperial examinations on a relatively small scale until the examination system was extensively expanded during the reign of Wu Zetian. Included in the expanded examination system was a military exam that tested physical ability, but the military exam never had a significant impact on the Chinese officer corps and military degrees were seen as inferior to their civil counterpart. The exact nature of Wu’s influence on the examination system is still a matter of scholarly debate.
During the Song dynasty the emperors expanded both examinations and the government school system, in part to counter the influence of hereditary nobility, increasing the number of degree holders to more than four to five times that of the Tang. From the Song dynasty onward, the examinations played the primary role in selecting scholar-officials, who formed the literati elite of society. However the examinations co-existed with other forms of recruitment such as direct appointments for the ruling family, nominations, quotas, clerical promotions, sale of official titles, and special procedures for eunuchs. The regular higher level degree examination cycle was decreed in 1067 to be 3 years but this triennial cycle only existed in nominal terms. In practice both before and after this, the examinations were irregularly implemented for significant periods of time: thus, the calculated statistical averages for the number of degrees conferred annually should be understood in this context. The jinshi exams were not a yearly event and should not be considered so; the annual average figures are a necessary artifact of quantitative analysis. The operations of the examination system were part of the imperial record keeping system, and the date of receiving the jinshi degree is often a key biographical datum: sometimes the date of achieving jinshi is the only firm date known for even some of the most historically prominent persons in Chinese history.
A brief interruption to the examinations occurred at the beginning of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in the 13th century, but was later brought back with regional quotas which favored the Mongols and disadvantaged Southern Chinese. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the system contributed to the narrow and focused nature of intellectual life and enhanced the autocratic power of the emperor. The system continued with some modifications until its abolition in 1905 during the last years of the Qing dynasty. The modern examination system for selecting civil servants also indirectly evolved from the imperial one.
Japan implemented the examination system for 200 years during the Heian period (794-1185). Like the Chinese examinations, the curriculum revolved around the Confucian canon. However, unlike in China, it was only ever applied to the minor nobility and so gradually faded away under the hereditary system during the Samurai era.
The examination system was established in Korea in 958 under the reign of Gwangjong of Goryeo. Any free man (not Nobi) was able to take the examinations. By the Joseon period, high offices were closed to aristocrats who had not passed the exams. The examination system continued until 1894 when it was abolished by the Gabo Reform. As in China, the content of the examinations focused on the Confucian canon and ensured a loyal scholar bureaucrat class which upheld the throne.
The Confucian examination system in Vietnam was established in 1075 under the Lý dynasty Emperor Lý Nhân Tông and lasted until the Nguyễn dynasty Emperor Khải Định (1919). There were only three levels of examinations in Vietnam: inter provincial, pre-court, and court.
The imperial examination system was known to Europeans as early as 1570. It received great attention from the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), who viewed it and its Confucian appeal to rationalism favorably in comparison to religious reliance on “apocalypse.” Knowledge of Confucianism and the examination system was disseminated broadly in Europe following the Latin translation of Ricci’s journal in 1614. During the 18th century, the imperial examinations were often discussed in conjunction with Confucianism, which attracted great attention from contemporary European thinkers such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Baron d’Holbach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller. In France and Britain, Confucian ideology was used in attacking the privilege of the elite. Figures such as Voltaire claimed that the Chinese had “perfected moral science” and François Quesnay advocated an economic and political system modeled after that of the Chinese. According to Ferdinand Brunetière (1849-1906), followers of Physiocracy such as François Quesnay, whose theory of free trade was based on Chinese classical theory, were sinophiles bent on introducing “l’esprit chinois” to France. He also admits that French education was really based on Chinese literary examinations which were popularized in France by philosophers, especially Voltaire. Western perception of China in the 18th century admired the Chinese bureaucratic system as favourable over European governments for its seeming meritocracy. However those who admired China such as Christian Wolff were sometimes persecuted. In 1721 he gave a lecture at the University of Halle praising Confucianism, for which he was accused of atheism and forced to give up his position at the university.
The earliest evidence of examinations in Europe date to 1215 or 1219 in Bologna. These were chiefly oral in the form of a question or answer, disputation, determination, defense, or public lecture. The candidate gave a public lecture of two prepared passages assigned to him from the civil or canon law, and then doctors asked him questions, or expressed objections to answers. Evidence of written examinations do not appear until 1702 at Trinity College, Cambridge. According to Sir Michael Sadler, Europe may have had written examinations since 1518 but he admits the “evidence is not very clear.” In Prussia, medication examinations began in 1725. The Mathematical Tripos, founded in 1747, is commonly believed to be the first honor examination, but James Bass Mullinger considered “the candidates not having really undergone any examination whatsoever” because the qualification for a degree was merely four years of residence. France adopted the examination system in 1791 as a result of the French Revolution but it collapsed after only ten years. Germany implemented the examination system around 1800.
Englishmen in the 18th century such as Eustace Budgell recommended imitating the Chinese examination system but the first English person to recommend competitive examinations to qualify for employment was Adam Smith in 1776. In 1838, the Congregational church missionary Walter Henry Medhurst considered the Chinese exams to be “worthy of imitating.” In 1806, the British established a Civil Service College near London for training of the East India Company’s administrators in India. This was based on the recommendations of British East India Company officials serving in China and had seen the Imperial examinations. In 1829, the company introduced civil service examinations in India on a limited basis. This established the principle of qualification process for civil servants in England. In 1847 and 1856, Thomas Taylor Meadows strongly recommended the adoption of the Chinese principle of competitive examinations in Great Britain in his Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China. According to Meadows, “the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only.” Both Thomas Babing ton Macaulay, who was instrumental in passing the Saint Helena Act 1833, and Stafford North cote, 1st Earl of Iddes leigh, who prepared the North cote–Trevelyan Report that catalyzed the British civil service, were familiar with Chinese history and institutions. The Northcote–Trevelyan Report of 1854 made four principal recommendations: that recruitment should be on the basis of merit determined through standardized written examination, that candidates should have a solid general education to enable inter-departmental transfers, that recruits should be graded into a hierarchy, and that promotion should be through achievement, rather than ‘preferment, patronage, or purchase’.
When the report was brought up in parliament in 1853, Lord Monteagle argued against the implementation of open examinations because it was a Chinese system and China was not an “enlightened country.” Lord Stanley called the examinations the “Chinese Principle.” The Earl of Granville did not deny this but argued in favor of the examination system, considering that the minority Manchus had been able to rule China with it for over 200 years. In 1854, Edwin Chadwick reported that some noblemen did not agree with the measures introduced because they were Chinese. The examination system was finally implemented in the British Indian Civil Service in 1855, prior to which admission into the civil service was purely a matter of patronage, and in England in 1870. Even as late as ten years after the competitive examination plan was passed, people still attacked it as an “adopted Chinese culture.” Alexander Baillie-Cochrane, 1st Baron Laming ton insisted that the English “did not know that it was necessary for them to take lessons from the Celestial Empire.” In 1875, Archibald Sayce voiced concern over the prevalence of competitive examinations, which he described as “the invasion of this new Chinese culture.
A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in contradistinction to a payment, salary, or wage, and often use guineas rather than pounds as units of account. Under the feudal system, a Knight’s fee was what was given to a knight for his service, usually the usage of land. A contingent fee is an attorney’s fee which is reduced or not charged at all if the court case is lost by the attorney.
A service fee, service charge, or surcharge is a fee added to a customer’s bill. The purpose of a service charge often depends on the nature of the product and corresponding service provided. Examples of why this fee is charged are: travel time expenses, truck rental fees, liability and workers’ compensation insurance fees, and planning fees. UPS and FedEx have recently begun surcharges for fuel.
Restaurants and banquet halls charging service charges in lieu of tips must distribute them to their wait staff in some US states (e.g., Massachusetts, New York, Montana), but in the state of Kentucky may keep them. A fee may be a flat fee or a variable one, or part of a two-part tariff. A membership fee is charged as part of a subscription business model.
For telecommunications services such as high-speed Internet and mobile phones, an activation fee is commonly assessed, although most companies fail to include it in the advertised price, resulting in customer miss perception on assessment and validity of the fees. An activation fee is prevalent throughout the cellphone industry and is generally assessed to cover costs of line activations and enhancements to networks.
Another fee is the early-termination fee applied nearly universally to cellphone contracts, supposedly to cover the remaining part of the subsidy that the provider prices the phones with. If the user terminates before the end of the term, he or she will be charged, often well over $100. In the U.S., mobile phone companies have come under heavy criticism for this anti-competitive practice, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering limits to prevent price gouging, such as requiring the fees to be prorated.
Many cable TV and telephone companies, including AT&T, include a regulatory-cost recovery fee in the bill each month of around $3, passing the blame onto government regulation, and essentially charging their customers for complying with U.S. law.
Bank fees are assessed to customers for various services and as penalties. There are unauthorised overdraft fees, ATM usage fees, and fees for having an account balance below the minimum daily balance. Some banks charge a fee for using tellers in an effort to encourage customers to use automated services instead. The fees have come in for criticism as excessive from consumer advocates. They have also targeted bank practices that maximize the assessment of fees and fees that can add up to many times the amount of small transactions.
U.S. banks extract fees from automatic teller machine (ATM) transactions that are made at rival banks, even if the customer’s home bank has no branch in a particular area (such as when the customer is on vacation). Customers are sometimes charged twice, both by the bank that owns the ATM, and again by their bank. Bank of America charges a denial fee, literally a fee for refusing service to the customer (if there are insufficient funds or a daily limit), and a fee to simply check the account balance at a “foreign” (other banks’) ATMs.
Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and legislation passed by Congress, banks modified many credit card agreements with customers.